Blast-furnace tuyere



Dec. 10, 1929. E. H. HOLZWORTH BLAST FURNACE TUYERE Filed July 11. 1927 Patented Dec. 10, 1929 PATENT; OFFICE ERNEST H. HOLZWORTH, OF BUFFALO, NEW YORK BLAST-FURNACE TUYERE Application filed July 11, 1927. Serial No. 204,696.

This invention relates to improvements in the tuyeres used in connection with blast furnaces.

One of its objects is to provide a tuyere of this character which has been designed to reduce to a minimum the burning outof the tuyere at its nose and thereby materially re duce the maintenance costs of blast furnaces.

Another object of the invention is to pron vide a novel and effective method of continuously agitating and keeping in motion the molten materials in the furnace in the vicinity of the tuyere and preventing the same adboring to the tuyere and burning it.

in the accompanying drawings :l igure 1 is a vertical longitudinal section of a tuyere embodying my invention, the same being mounted in the wall of a blast furnace. Figure 2 is a transverse section thereof on line 2-2, Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a sectional View, similar to Fig. 1, showing a modified form of the invention.

Similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views.

The numeral indicates a part of the furnace wall in which the improved tuyere is mounted in the usual and well known manner. As is customary, the tuyere consists of. a substantially frusto-conical body 11 made of a copper alloy or other appropriate material and having the usual passage 12 for the admission of a continuous blast of air to the furnace, this passage being connected at its outer end with the source of air supply by a pipe 13. The tuyere-body has a cooling compartment 1d surrounding its air passage and through which water or other fluid is circulated by means of an inlet pipe 15 and an outlet pipe 16 connected to the outer end Wall of said body, as shown in Fig. 1.

In practise, the molten metal and other materials in the furnace form and collect around the underside of the nose of the tuyere r in substantially the manner shown in the drawings and burn the tuyere-nose in a comparatively short time, necessitating the re newa'l of the tuyere from time to time at a considerable cost. The present invention is designed to agitate the molten materials gathlti fittl ered around the nose of the tuyere in such a manner that they will be kept away from the 't-uyere body and thus reduce to a minimum the possibility of burning the same. To this end I preferably introduce a portion of the air blast flowing through the tuyere-passage 12 through a port or opening 17 formed at or a suitable distance behind the nose end of the tuyere-body and extending in a downwardly and forwardly inclined direction, as shown in Fig. 1. By this construction, a continuous blast'of air of suflicient pressure is introduced through the port 17 to agitate the molten materials in the vicinity of the noseend of the tuyere with the result that they are constantly kept in motion. The introduction of this blast of air directly into the molten materials of the furnace and in substantially the direction indicated in the drawings distributes the eddy currents which normally form at the nose of the tuyere due to the whirling motion of the main air blast introduced through the tuyere passage 12, thereby preventing the molten material from pocketing or gathering around the tuyre-body and burning its nose.

If desired, the blast of air for agitating the molten materials may be introduced through a separate pipe 18, as shown in Fig. 3. This pipe is joined by a collar 19 to a pipe-section 20 arranged in the tuyere-body and reliably sealed in the rear end and bottom wall of the latter to prevent leakage of the cooling fluid from the compartment 1d.

I claim as my invention 2-- 1. A blast furnace tuyere, comprising a body having a passage disposed adjacent to and under the nose end of the tuyere for delivering air under pressure into the molten materials of the furnace.

2. A blast furnace tuyere, comprising a body having a passage for the admission of air to the furnace above the level of the molten materials therein and an auxiliary passage disposed adjacent to and under the nose end of the tuyere for elivering air under pressure substantially d wnwardly into the molten materials of the furnace to keep them in constant motion about the nose end of the tuyere.

3. The method of preventing the burning of a blast furnace tuyre, which consists in introducing a blast of air downwardly and forwardly through the tuyre and discharging it adjacent to and under the nose end of the tuyre into the molten materials of the furnace for the purpose of agitating the molten materials adjacent thereto and keeping them in a state of motion.

ERNEST H. HOLZWORTH. 

